This Will Only Hurt a Little(9)
As seventh grade came to a close, bar and bat mitzvah season started to get going and I was relieved by all the invitations I got, and the fact that the boys who went to Hebrew schools knew nothing of my humiliation at the Valentine’s dance. I went with my friends, and we stuck to the edges of the crowd, and talked about which boys we thought were cute, and took a million silly photos in the photo booths.
And in case you’re wondering, I avoided the mosh pits.
MY SISTER
(The Juliana Hatfield Three)
One of my mom’s famous stories about my birth has to do with her beloved poodle, Pierre.
“He took one look at you in your bassinet and KEELED OVER AND DIED! HE JUST SAID, ‘NOPE! NOT GONNA DEAL WITH THAT! I’M OUTTA HERE!’?”
Obviously, I know that isn’t exactly true. I mean, a dog doesn’t look at a baby and just decide to kick it. In truth, the poodle was like fifteen years old when I was born and I think my mom had basically kept him on life support for the months leading up to my birth. Plus, the fact is, Pierre was put down: he didn’t just die naturally of disgust at the whole prospect of my birth. And I believe he was put to sleep a few months after I was born anyway. So, yet another one of my mom’s favorite go-tos is a total fabrication for dramatic effect. Which I knew on some level as a kid. But the feeling I got whenever she told it to people was that I had killed her favorite thing on earth when I was born.
I mean . . . the stories about Pierre the wonder dog! Did you know that when my mom made beef stroganoff, she would give Pierre his helping and he would “SPIT THOSE PEAS RIGHT OUT AND LINE THEM UP ON THE PLATE WITH HIS NOSE! CAN YOU IMAGINE??!”?
And did you know that Pierre was “SUCH a GENTLEMAN, he JUST LOVED wearing his little tuxedo!” that my mom sewed for him? Many times I wondered if she ever loved me or my sister as much as she loved that dog.
The other story about my birth that my mom loved to tell was this: “Busy just popped right out! She couldn’t wait to be born! ‘HERE I AM WORLD!! READY OR NOT!!’?”
The truth is that I was a planned C-section that she scheduled for the earliest date they would allow, June 25. My dad and my older sister were waiting for me patiently in the recovery room. There is the sweetest picture of my sister, wearing her pop beads and holding the baby blanket that she brought for her new little sister, which matched her own.
“Leigh Ann, on the other hand!” my mom always says. “Well, she tried to kill me! We both almost died! It was horrendous—just horrendous! We should have sued that doctor! The hospital! Everyone!! But you know, we were just so happy that Leigh Ann was alive!”
And here is where my mom—if she’s in a particular mood—always gets teary at the memory. “That ‘doctor’ should have never induced me. Leigh Ann was upside down and backward! They tried to yank her out and they broke both her hips! And then I had the emergency C-section and it was just horrible. Your poor dad thought he had lost us both!”
If my dad happens to be around for this particular retelling, he usually just nods and adds, “It was very scary.”
And so these are the stories of our respective births: My older sister Leigh Ann tried to kill my mother, and then I came along, popped right out, and killed her beloved dog.
My sister is four years older than I am and I think my mom was so traumatized by Leigh Ann’s birth that it took a while for her to want to get pregnant again. I don’t know the whole truth of it (how could I?). What I do know is that she was breech, which wasn’t identified for some reason, and when they tried to yank her out, the doctor broke her hips and she had to be in some sort of cast/brace for many, many months as a baby. I can’t imagine what that does to a person. To have that kind of trauma when you’re born. Or to spend the first six or seven months of your life confined like that. My mom also had a hard time recovering from the birth. They were living in Connecticut at the time, but moved back to Oak Park, where both my parents’ families still were, when Leigh Ann was about three.
My mom likes to say, “Everything was fine until we moved to Arizona. Moving from Oak Park was the thing that did it. Leigh Ann just was so angry at us. I don’t think she ever really got over it, truthfully.”
The amount of anger my sister had, and would display, was often scary to me. I know it didn’t feel normal. I know my friends were always confused by my loud, fighting family. And I know I preferred to play at other kids’ houses when I could.
Our mom had a thing about making everything “even” in our house. I think it was some prevailing parenting philosophy of the time. Or maybe it was something she had come up with to try to alleviate jealousy. She would make it known that she would allot the exact same amount of money for each of us for Christmas presents or back-to-school clothes. When she turned sixteen, Leigh Ann got my mom’s old car, so when I turned sixteen, my parents bought me a used car that was pretty much equivalent. Or, for instance, if someone complimented me on a performance at a play in high school, my mom would pipe up and say, “Both my girls are so talented! Leigh Ann just starred in the Creighton University production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses!”
I would just stand there, rolling my eyes. My friends’ parents don’t care about Leigh Ann, Mom. READ THE ROOM.
When Leigh Ann got to redecorate her room as a teenager, it was determined that I would too, when I turned fourteen. I couldn’t pierce my ears until I reached the age Leigh Ann had been when she got hers pierced. Same for contacts. It was in my mom’s head that if she could make things feel equal, they somehow would be. But I don’t need to tell you, that’s not how kids work. You can’t force them to be equal, and you certainly can’t force them to be friends or even like each other.